Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel, who was appointed by President Obama, has released his 30-day report into the targeting wrongdoings of the IRS. Yesterday, Werfel testified as to his preliminary findings in front of the House Ways And Means Committee. Included in Werfel's findings, which he admitted were preliminary and "inconclusive", was this statement (I'm going off my own notes, written as I watched the hearings on C-SPAN. I can find no transcript of the hearings online):

Werfel: "We have not found evidence of intentional wrongdoing by anyone at the IRS, or involvement of anyone in these matters by anyone outside the IRS".

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I abhor discriminatory government policies. I believe any law the government enacts should apply equally to everyone. It's called Equal Protection under the law, and as I mentioned in my last post, the words "Equal Justice Under The Law" are engraved on the Supreme Court building. Equal Protection explains my views on a range of issues - It's why I believe gay marriage should be legal. It's why I think Affirmative Action policies should be discontinued. It's why I consider our highly discriminatory tax code to be a bad joke.

The preclearance provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act requires mainly southern states to obtain approval from the Justice Dept. prior to changing it's voting practices. The preclearance provision prohibits:

"Anyone know if President Obama intends to perform background checks on the Syrian rebels before providing them weapons?" - Senator Ted Cruz, June 18, 2013

No, Sen. Cruz, Obama's background checks only apply to those suspected enemies of the United States known as the American people. Actual enemies of the United States and her allies, such as those found among the Syrian rebels, just get the guns. Obama's decision to arm the rebels, which is opposed by 70% of the American people, will send arms to people like the Muslim Brotherhood and Gen. Salim Idris, the head of the Syrian National Council, who has proclaimed he is an "enemy of Israel". Terrific.

We have federal laws prohibiting racial discrimination. I agree completely. People should not be discriminated against based upon their race. It seems obvious. Nobody should favor discrimination in this day and age (not that they ever should have). Racial discrimination should be an unsavory relic of the past.

But to people of a certain political persuasion, discrimination is fine as long as the "correct" people are being discriminated against.

With Obamacare set to go into effect next year, I was curious to know how my health insurance will be affected. Mainly, I want to know how much it is going to cost, or how much it is going to save me.

I began looking for information, and I found an online Obamacare subsidy calculator, courtesy of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The calculator tells you how much your Obamacare insurance will cost, and how much of a government subsidy you'll get. Cool.

I'm happy that my friends on the left side of the aisle see the problem with the government collecting the phone records of all Americans, as revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden. I see the problem too. The government has no right to invade the privacy of innocent American citizens without cause, as is stated in the Fourth Amendment.

Using the same privacy reasoning, I have to ask my left aisle friends why they supported ObamaCare, which handed over all our medical records to the government.

Some people are calling him a hero and others are calling him a traitor, but if you haven't read Glen Greenwald's interview with the NSA whistleblower, Edward Snowden, you should. Here are some selected excerpts:

Snowden: "NSA and intelligence community in general is focused on getting intelligence wherever it can by any means possible. It believes, on the grounds of sort of a self-certification, that they serve the national interest. Originally we saw that focus very narrowly tailored as foreign intelligence gathered overseas."

That's what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) thinks about revelations that the government is spying on nearly all Americans. His exact words were "Right now I think everyone should just calm down and understand that this isn't anything that is brand new, it's been going on for some seven years..."

What a relief, eh ? I'm having a problem seeing how the knowledge that the government has been spying on us for years is supposed to be calming. It's having just the opposite effect on me.

Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder, who has at least twice given false testimony under oath to Congress (Fast And Furious, AP reporter scandal), described his Justice Department's collection of reporters phone records as being "a little out of whack". Holder said he was "a little concerned" that an investigative reporter, James Rosen of Fox News, was named as an "aider, abettor, and/or co-conspirator" in crime just for doing his job. Holder's little concern for freedom of the press, however, did not prevent Holder from signing off on an affadavit naming Rosen as a possible criminal in order to obtain a secret warrant for his phone records. In fact, Holder was so little concerned with Rosen's First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights that he shopped his Rosen secret warrant application around the courts until he found a judge who would agree to it. After two judges denied Holder's request for secrecy, a third compliant judge okayed it. Holder's actions regarding Rosen were revealed shortly after Holder told congressional investigators, "In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material.This is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy.“

President Obama said he still has confidence in Holder, despite the fact that Holder seemingly lies to Congress whenever it suits his purposes. If Holder does leave his post as Attorney General, perhaps he will become Obama's next Press Secretary or something. After all, Obama did name Susan Rice, who infamously misled the American people about Benghazi, as his next National Security Advisor. I'm wondering if putting forth falsehoods to cover the Obama regime's back, rather than being seen as disgraceful behavior, puts a faithful underling on the fast track for promotion in the administration's highly politicized world.